Spokenly offers free Mac dictation with paid upgrades. It's relatively new and growing. Whisperer costs money upfront but runs fully offline with developer features Spokenly doesn't have.
Price Comparison#
| Whisperer | Spokenly | |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | Free trial | Yes |
| Base app | $2.99 one-time | Free |
| Pro version | $14.99 lifetime | Premium (varies) |
| Subscription | No | Premium tiers may apply |
| Cloud fees | None (100% offline) | Possible |
Spokenly has a free tier. Whisperer has a free trial but then costs $2.99 base or $14.99 for Pro. Whisperer is one-time; Spokenly's premium tiers may be recurring.
Feature Comparison#
| Feature | Whisperer | Spokenly |
|---|---|---|
| Live dictation | Yes | Yes |
| Inserts into any app | Yes | Yes |
| Code Mode (camelCase, symbols) | Yes (Pro) | No |
| Per-app profiles | Yes (Pro) | No |
| Personal dictionary | Yes (Pro) | No |
| 100% offline | Yes | Partial |
| AI post-processing | Yes (10 modes, offline) | Limited |
| Multiple engines | 3 (Whisper, NVIDIA, Apple) | 1 |
| File transcription | Yes | No |
| Transcription history | Yes | Limited |
| iOS companion | No | Yes |
| Languages | 100+ | Growing |
Where Whisperer Wins#
Code Mode
Whisperer is the only Mac dictation app with Code Mode. Dictate camelCase, snake_case, parentheses, brackets, semicolons by voice. Spokenly doesn't have developer features.
Fully Offline
Everything runs on your Mac. No cloud, no data leaving your machine. Matters if you dictate proprietary code or sensitive info.
Three Engines
Whisper (GPU), NVIDIA (Neural Engine), Apple Speech. Switch between them without restarting. Spokenly has one backend.
Per-App Profiles
Different apps, different behavior. Code Mode in VS Code, normal text in Slack. Spokenly is the same everywhere.
Where Spokenly Wins#
Free Tier#
Spokenly is free to start. Whisperer has a trial, then costs money. If free is the main criterion, Spokenly wins.
iOS App#
Spokenly has an iPhone/iPad companion. Whisperer is Mac only.
Active Development#
Spokenly is newer and growing. Worth keeping an eye on as it matures.
Bottom Line#
Developers: Whisperer. Code Mode doesn't exist in Spokenly.
Budget: Spokenly is free. Whisperer is $2.99-14.99 one-time.
Privacy: Whisperer runs offline. No audio leaves your Mac.
iOS: Spokenly has a mobile app. Whisperer doesn't.
More: vs Superwhisper, vs Voibe, vs Apple Dictation. See pricing and Code Mode.
Ready to try voice dictation on your Mac?
Free download. No account required. 100% offline.
Download on the Mac App Store